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Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman (May 31, 1819 - March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though biographers continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions.Buckham, Luke. "Walt Whitman's Vision of Liberty", Keene Free Press. October 11, 2006. However, there is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman had actual sexual experiences with men.Loving, 19 Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view of the races, and at one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy. Life and work Overview Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and - in addition to publishing his poetry - was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.Reynolds, 589 Early life Walter Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, Town of Huntington, Long Island, to parents with interests in Quaker thought, Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. The second of nine children,Miller, 17 he was immediately nicknamed "Walt" to distinguish him from his father.Loving, 29 Walter Whitman Sr. named three of his seven sons after American leaders: Andrew Jackson, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson. The oldest was named Jesse and another boy died unnamed at the age of six months. The couple's sixth son, the youngest, was named Edward. At age four, Whitman moved with his family from West Hills to Brooklyn, living in a series of homes, in part due to bad investments.Loving, 30 Whitman looked back on his childhood as generally restless and unhappy, given his family's difficult economic status.Reynolds, 24 One happy moment that he later recalled was when he was lifted in the air and kissed on the cheek by the Marquis de Lafayette during a celebration in Brooklyn on July 4, 1825.Reynolds, 33â-34 At age eleven Whitman concluded formal schooling.Loving, 32 He then sought employment for further income for his family; he was an office boy for two lawyers and later was an apprentice and printer's devil for the weekly Long Island newspaper the Patriot, edited by Samuel E. Clements.Reynolds, 44 There, Whitman learned about the printing press and typesetting.Kaplan, 74 He may have written "sentimental bits" of filler material for occasional issues.Callow, 30 Clements aroused controversy when he and two friends attempted to dig up the corpse of Elias Hicks to create a plaster mold of his head.Callow, 29 Clements left the Patriot shortly after, possibly as a result of the controversy.Loving, 34 Early career The following summer Whitman worked for another printer, Erastus Worthington, in Brooklyn.Reynolds, 45 His family moved back to West Hills in the spring, but Whitman remained and took a job at the shop of Alden Spooner, editor of the leading Whig weekly newspaper the Long-Island Star. While at the Star, Whitman became a regular patron of the local library, joined a town debating society, began attending theater performances,Callow, 32 and anonymously published some of his earliest poetry in the New York Mirror.Kaplan, 79 At age 16 in May 1835, Whitman left the Star and Brooklyn.Kaplan, 77 He moved to New York City to work as a compositorCallow, 35 though, in later years, Whitman could not remember where.Kaplan, 81 He attempted to find further work but had difficulty in part due to a severe fire in the printing and publishing district and in part due to a general collapse in the economy leading up to the Panic of 1837.Loving, 36 In May 1836, he rejoined his family, now living in Hempstead, Long Island.Callow, 36 Whitman taught intermittently at various schools until the spring of 1838, though he was not satisfied as a teacher.Loving, 37 After his teaching attempts, Whitman went back to Huntington, New York to found his own newspaper, the Long Islander. Whitman served as publisher, editor, pressman, and distributor and even provided home delivery. After ten months, he sold the publication to E. O. Crowell, whose first issue appeared on July 12, 1839.Reynolds, 60 No copies of the Long-Islander published under Whitman survive.Loving, 38 By the summer of 1839, he found a job as a typesetter in Jamaica, Queens with the Long Island Democrat, edited by James J. Brenton. He left shortly thereafter, and made another attempt at teaching from the winter of 1840 to the spring of 1841,Kaplan, 93-94 During this time, he published a series of ten editorials called "Sun-Down Papers - From the Desk of a Schoolmaster" in three newspapers between the winter of 1840 and July 1841. In these essays, he adopted a constructed persona, a technique he would employ throughout his career.Stacy, 25 At one of the schools, the Locust Grove School in Southold, New York in 1840 he was reported to have been tarred and feathered and carried out on a rail by a mob after Presbyterian Church, pastor Ralph Smith accused him of committing sodomy with some students. The school is subsequently referred to on maps as the 'Sodom School.'Walt Whitman's Shaky Time Teaching in Southold - Dan's Papers - January 21, 2011 Whitman moved to New York City in May, initially working a low-level job at the New World, working under Park Benjamin, Sr. and Rufus Wilmot Griswold.Callow, 56 He continued working for short periods of time for various newspapers; in 1842 he was editor of the Aurora and from 1846 to 1848 he was editor of the Brooklyn Eagle.Stacy, 6 He also contributed freelance fiction and poetry throughout the 1840s.Reynolds, 83-84 Whitman lost his position at the Brooklyn Eagle in 1848 after siding with the free-soil "Barnburner" wing of the Democratic party against the newspaper's owner, Isaac Van Anden, who belonged to the conservative, or "Hunker", wing of the party.Stacy, 87-91 Whitman was a delegate to the 1848 founding convention of the Free Soil Party. ''Leaves of Grass'' Whitman claimed that after years of competing for "the usual rewards", he determined to become a poet.Kaplan, 185 He first experimented with a variety of popular literary genres which appealed to the cultural tastes of the period.Reynolds, 85 As early as 1850, he began writing what would become Leaves of Grass,Loving, 154 a collection of poetry which he would continue editing and revising until his death.Miller, 55 Whitman intended to write a distinctly American epicMiller, 155 and used free verse with a cadence based on the Bible.Kaplan, 187 At the end of June 1855, Whitman surprised his brothers with the already-printed first edition of Leaves of Grass. George "didn't think it worth reading".Callow, 226 to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison.]] Whitman paid for the publication of the first edition of Leaves of Grass himself and had it printed at a local print shop during their breaks from commercial jobs.Loving, 178 A total of 795 copies were printed.Kaplan, 198 No name is given as author; instead, facing the title page was an engraved portrait done by Samuel Hollyer,Callow, 227 but in the body of the text he calls himself "Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest".[http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/reviews/leaves1855/anc.00019.html 1855 review of Leaves of grass] The book received its strongest praise from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote a flattering five page letter to Whitman and spoke highly of the book to friends.Kaplan, 203 The first edition of Leaves of Grass was widely distributed and stirred up significant interest,Reynolds, 340 in part due to Emerson's approval,Callow, 232 but was occasionally criticized for the seemingly "obscene" nature of the poetry.Loving, 414 Geologist John Peter Lesley wrote to Emerson, calling the book "trashy, profane & obscene" and the author "a pretentious ass".Kaplan, 211 On July 11, 1855, a few days after Leaves of Grass was published, Whitman's father died at the age of 65.Kaplan, 229 In the months following the first edition of Leaves of Grass, critical responses began focusing more on the potentially offensive sexual themes. Though the second edition was already printed and bound, the publisher almost did not release it.Reynolds, 348 In the end, the edition went to retail, with 20 additional poems,Callow, 238 in August 1856.Kaplan, 207 Leaves of Grass was revised and re-released in 1860Loving, 238 again in 1867, and several more times throughout the remainder of Whitman's life. Several well-known writers admired the work enough to visit Whitman, including Bronson Alcott and Henry David Thoreau.Reynolds, 363 During the first publications of Leaves of Grass, Whitman had financial difficulties and was forced to work as a journalist again, specifically with Brooklyn's Daily Times starting in May 1857.Callow, 225 As an editor, he oversaw the paper's contents, contributed book reviews, and wrote editorials.Reynolds, 368 He left the job in 1859, though it is unclear if he was fired or chose to leave.Loving, 228 Whitman, who typically kept detailed notebooks and journals, left very little information about himself in the late 1850s.Reynolds, 375 Civil War years ]] As the American Civil War was beginning, Whitman published his poem "Beat! Beat! Drums!" as a patriotic rally call for the North.Callow, 283 Whitman's brother George had joined the Union army and began sending Whitman several vividly detailed letters of the battle front.Reynolds, 410 On December 16, 1862, a listing of fallen and wounded soldiers in the New York Tribune included "First Lieutenant G. W. Whitmore", which Whitman worried was a reference to his brother George.Kaplan, 268 He made his way south immediately to find him, though his wallet was stolen on the way.Reynolds, 411 "Walking all day and night, unable to ride, trying to get information, trying to get access to big people", Whitman later wrote,Callow, 286 he eventually found George alive, with only a superficial wound on his cheek. Whitman, profoundly affected by seeing the wounded soldiers and the heaps of their amputated limbs, left for Washington on December 28, 1862 with the intention of never returning to New York. In Washington, D.C., Whitman's friend Charley Eldridge helped him obtain part-time work in the army paymaster's office, leaving time for Whitman to volunteer as a nurse in the army hospitals.Callow, 293 He would write of this experience in "The Great Army of the Sick", published in a New York newspaper in 1863Kaplan, 273 and, 12 years later, in a book called Memoranda During the War.Callow, 297 He then contacted Emerson, this time to ask for help in obtaining a government post. Another friend, John Trowbridge, passed on a letter of recommendation from Emerson to Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, hoping he would grant Whitman a position in that department. Chase, however, did not want to hire the author of such a disreputable book as Leaves of Grass.Callow, 295 The Whitman family had a difficult end to 1864. On September 30, 1864, Whitman's brother George was captured by Confederates in Virginia,Loving, 281 and another brother, Andrew Jackson, died of tuberculosis compounded by alcoholism on December 3.Kaplan, 293-294 That month, Whitman committed his brother Jesse to the Kings County Lunatic Asylum.Reynolds, 454 Whitman's spirits were raised, however, when he finally got a better-paying government post as a low-grade clerk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior, thanks to his friend William Douglas O'Connor. O'Connor, a poet, daguerreotypist and an editor at the Saturday Evening Post, had written to William Tod Otto, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, on Whitman's behalf.Loving, 283 Whitman began the new appointment on January 24, 1865, with a yearly salary of $1,200.Reynolds, 455 A month later, on February 24, 1865, George was released from capture and granted a furlough because of his poor health. By May 1, Whitman received a promotion to a slightly higher clerkship and published Drum-Taps.Loving, 290 Effective June 30, 1865, however, Whitman was fired from his job. His dismissal came from the new Secretary of the Interior, former Iowa Senator James Harlan. Though Harlan dismissed several clerks who "were seldom at their respective desks", he may have fired Whitman on moral grounds after finding an 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.Loving, 291 O'Connor protested until J. Hubley Ashton had Whitman transferred to the Attorney General's office on July 1.Kaplan, 304 O'Connor, though, was still upset and vindicated Whitman by publishing a biased and exaggerated biographical study, The Good Gray Poet, in January 1866. The fifty-cent pamphlet defended Whitman as a wholesome patriot, established the poet's nickname and increased his popularity.Reynolds, 456-457 Also aiding in his popularity was the publication of "O Captain! My Captain!", a relatively conventional poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln, the only poem to appear in anthologies during Whitman's lifetime.Kaplan, 309 Part of Whitman's role at the Attorney General's office was interviewing former Confederate soldiers for Presidential pardons. "There are real characters among them", he later wrote, "and you know I have a fancy for anything out of the ordinary."Loving, 293 In August 1866, he took a month off in order to prepare a new edition of Leaves of Grass which would not be published until 1867 after difficulty in finding a publisher.Kaplan, 318-319 He hoped it would be its last edition.Loving, 314 In February 1868 Poems of Walt Whitman was published in England thanks to the influence of William Michael Rossetti,Callow, 326 with minor changes that Whitman reluctantly approved.Kaplan, 324 The edition became popular in England, especially with endorsements from the highly respected writer Anne Gilchrist.Callow, 329 Another edition of Leaves of Grass was issued in 1871, the same year it was mistakenly reported that its author died in a railroad accident.Loving, 331 As Whitman's international fame increased, he remained at the attorney general's office until January 1872.Reynolds, 464 He spent much of 1872 caring for his mother who was now nearly eighty and struggling with arthritis.Kaplan, 340 He also traveled and was invited to Dartmouth College to give the commencement address on June 26, 1872.Loving, 341 Health decline and death .]] After suffering a paralytic stroke in early 1873, Whitman was induced to move from Washington to his brother's--George Washington Whitman, an Engineer--home at 431 Stevens Street in Camden New Jersey where his mother was ill and would die that same year in May. Both events were difficult for Whitman and left him depressed and he would remain at his brothers home until buying his own in 1884. Miller, 33 However, before purchasing his own home, he spent the greatest period of his residence in Camden at his brother's home in Stevens Street. While in residence he was very productive publishing three version of Leaves of Grass among other works. He was also last fully physically active in this house, receiving both Oscar Wilde and Thomas Eakins. His other brother, Edward, an "invalid" since birth, also lived in the house.What Happened to Camden's Other Walt Whitman House? Curator of Shit. January 2011 <>. When his brother and sister-in-law were forced to move for business reasons, he bought his own house at 328 Mickle Street (now the Walt Whitman House, 330 Mickle Street).Haas, Irvin. Historic Homes of American Authors. Washington, DC: The Preservation Press, 1991: 141. ISBN 0891331808. First taken care of by tenants, he was completely bed ridden for most of his time in Mickle Street. During this time, he began socializing with Mary Oakes Davis - the widow of a sea captain. She was a neighbor to him boarding with a family in Bridge Avenue just a few blocks from Mickle Street.Loving, 432 She moved in with Whitman on February 24, 1885, to serve as his housekeeper in exchange for free rent. She brought with her a cat, a dog, two turtledoves, a canary, and other assorted animals.Reynolds, 548 During this time, Whitman produced further editions of Leaves of Grass in 1876, 1881, and 1889. As the end of 1891 approached, he prepared a final edition of Leaves of Grass, an edition which has been nicknamed the "Deathbed Edition". He wrote, "L. of G. at last complete - after 33 y'rs of hackling at it, all times & moods of my life, fair weather & foul, all parts of the land, and peace & war, young & old".Reynolds, 586 Preparing for death, Whitman commissioned a granite mausoleum shaped like a house for $4,000Loving, 479 and visited it often during construction.Kaplan, 49 In the last week of his life, he was too weak to lift a knife or fork and wrote: "I suffer all the time: I have no relief, no escape: it is monotony - monotony - monotony - in pain."Reynolds, 587 Whitman died on March 26, 1892.Callow, 363 An autopsy revealed his lungs had diminished to one-eighth their normal breathing capacity, a result of bronchial pneumonia, and that an egg-sized abscess on his chest had eroded one of his ribs. The cause of death was officially listed as "pleurisy of the left side, consumption of the right lung, general miliary tuberculosis and parenchymatous nephritis."Reynolds, 588 A public viewing of his body was held at his Camden home; over one thousand people visited in three hoursLoving, 480 and Whitman's oak coffin was barely visible because of all the flowers and wreaths left for him. Four days after his death, he was buried in his tomb at Harleigh Cemetery in Camden ."Walt Whitman ," FindAGrave.com, Web, June 26, 2011. Another public ceremony was held at the cemetery, with friends giving speeches, live music, and refreshments. Whitman's friend, the orator Robert Ingersoll, delivered the eulogy.The Book of Eulogies, Phyllis Theroux (Editor), 1977, Simon & Schuster. Page 30. Later, the remains of Whitman's parents and two of his brothers and their families were moved to the mausoleum.Kaplan, 50 Writing , 1887-88]] Whitman's work breaks the boundaries of poetic form and is generally prose-like.Reynolds, 314 He also used unusual images and symbols in his poetry, including rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris.Kaplan, 233 He also openly wrote about death and sexuality, including prostitution. He is often labeled as the father of free verse, though he did not invent it. Poetic theory Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, "The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it." He believed there was a vital, symbiotic relationship between the poet and society.Reynolds, 5 This connection was emphasized especially in "Song of Myself" by using an all-powerful first-person narration.Reynolds, 324 As an American epic, it deviated from the historic use of an elevated hero and instead assumed the identity of the common people.Miller, 78 Leaves of Grass also responded to the impact that recent urbanization in the United States had on the masses.Reynolds, 332 Contemporary reception Charles G.D. Roberts: "As for Whitman, who, in the judgement of many of the finest intellects of the day stands out the most prominent figure in American poetry, with all his admirers he has no imitators, for which we are devoutly thankful. Yet Whitman’s genius is so great that, in spite of his immodesties, his irritating egotism, his extravagant affections, his reckless constructions, his inapt and awkward coinage of unnecessary words—in spite of the deadly dullness of his catalogues, his pages on pages of utter failure, at length the most hostile critic, unless blind of the mind’s eye, is constrained to yield him homage. When most truly himself, the inspired interpreter of Nature in her largest and freest moods, his genius refuses to be hidden by the rags wherewith he decks it."Charles G.D. Roberts, "Notes on Some of the Younger American Poets", Non-Fictional Prose by Charles G.D. Roberts (edited by D.M.R. Bentley and Laurel Boone), Canadian Poetry, UWO, Web, June 7, 2012. Lifestyle and beliefs Alcohol Whitman was a vocal proponent of temperance and in his youth rarely drank alcohol. He once claimed he did not taste "strong liquor" until he was thirtyLoving, 71 and occasionally argued for prohibition.Callow, 75 One of his earliest long fiction works, the novel Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate, first published November 23, 1842, is a temperance novel.Loving, 74 Whitman wrote the novel at the height of popularity of the Washingtonian movement though the movement itself was plagued with contradictions, as was Franklin Evans.Reynolds, 95 Years later Whitman claimed he was embarrassed by the bookReynolds, 91 and called it a "damned rot".Loving, 75 He dismissed it by saying he wrote the novel in three days solely for money while he was under the influence of alcohol himself.Reynolds, 97 Even so, he wrote other pieces recommending temperance, including The Madman and a short story "Reuben's Last Wish".Loving, 72 Later in life he was more liberal with alcohol, enjoying local wines and champagne.Henry Bryan Binns A life of Walt Whitman; p.315 Religion Whitman was deeply influenced by deism. He denied any one faith was more important than another, and embraced all religions equally.Reynolds, 237 In "Song of Myself", he gave an inventory of major religions and indicated he respected and accepted all of them - a sentiment he further emphasized in his poem "With Antecedents", affirming: "I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god, / I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without exception". In 1874, he was invited to write a poem about the Spiritualism movement, to which he responded, "It seems to me nearly altogether a poor, cheap, crude humbug."Loving, 353 Whitman was a religious skeptic: though he accepted all churches, he believed in none. God, to Whitman, was both immanent and transcendent and the human soul was immortal and in a state of progressive development. Sexuality ]] Whitman's sexuality is sometimes assumed to be homosexual or bisexual based on his poetry, though that has been at times disputed. His poetry depicts love and sexuality in a more earthy, individualistic way common in American culture before the medicalization of sexuality in the late 19th century.D'Emilio, John and Estelle B. Freeman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. University of Chicago Press, 1997. ISBN 0-226-14264-7 Though Leaves of Grass was often labeled pornographic or obscene, only one critic remarked on its author's presumed sexual activity: in a November 1855 review, Rufus Wilmot Griswold suggested Whitman was guilty of "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians".Loving, 184-185 Whitman had intense friendships with many men and boys throughout his life. Some biographers have claimed that he may not have actually engaged in sexual relationships with males, while others cite letters, journal entries and other sources which they claim as proof of the sexual nature of some of his relationships.Norton, Rictor "Walt Whitman, Prophet of Gay Liberation" from The Great Queens of History, updated 18 November 1999 Peter Doyle may be the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman's life, according to biographer David S. Reynolds.Reynolds, 487 Doyle was a bus conductor whom Whitman met around 1866 and the two were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: "We were familiar at once - I put my hand on his knee - we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip - in fact went all the way back with me."Kaplan, 311-312 In his notebooks, Whitman disguised Doyle's initials using the code "16.4".Shively, Charley Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados, Gay Sunshine Press, San Francisco, 1987: 25. ISBN 9780917342189 A more direct second-hand account comes from Oscar Wilde. Wilde met Whitman in America in 1882 and wrote to the homosexual rights activist George Cecil Ives that there was "no doubt" about the great American poet's sexual orientation - "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips," he boasted.McKenna, Neil. The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde. Century, 2003: 33. ISBN 0465044387. The only explicit description of Whitman's sexual activities is second hand. In 1924 Edward Carpenter, then an old man, described an erotic encounter he had had in his youth with Whitman to Gavin Arthur, who recorded it in detail in his journal.Kantrowitz, Arnie. "Carpenter". Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, eds. New York: Garland Publishing, 1998.Arthur, Gavin The Circle of Sex, University Books, New York 1966 ASIN: B0006BOHDO Late in his life, when Whitman was asked outright if his series of "Calamus" poems were homosexual, he chose not to respond.Reynolds, 527 ]] Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. As a young teenage boy he lived in on the same street in Camden and moved in with Whitman, living with him a number of years and serving him in various roles. Duckett was fifteen when Whitman bought his house at 328 Mickle Street. Since, at least 1880, Duckett and his grandmother, Lydia Watson, were boarders subletting space from another family at 334 Mickle Street. Due to this close proximity it is obvious that Duckett and Whitman met as neighbors. Curator of Shit Their relationship was close, with the youth sharing Whitman's money when he had it. Whitman described their friendship as "thick." Though some biographers describe him as a boarder, others identify him as a lover.Henry Adams, Thomas Eakins; Eakins revealed: the secret life of an American artist p.289 Their photograph pictured is described as "modeled on the conventions of a marriage portrait," part of a series of portraits of the poet with his young male friends, and encrypting male-male desire.Ruth L. Bohan; Looking into Walt Whitman: American art, 1850-1920; p.136 Yet another intense relationship with a young man was the one with Harry Stafford, with whose family he stayed when at Timber Creek, and whom he first met when the young man was 18, in 1876. Whitman gave young Stafford a ring, which was returned and given back over the course of a stormy relationship lasting a number of years. Of that ring Stafford wrote to Whitman, "You know when you put it on there was but one thing to part it from me, and that was death."The Walt Whitman Archive There is also some evidence that Whitman may have had sexual relationships with women. He had a romantic friendship with a New York actress named Ellen Grey in the spring of 1862, but it is not known whether or not it was also sexual. He still had a photo of her decades later when he moved to Camden and referred to her as "an old sweetheart of mine".Callow, 278 In a letter dated August 21, 1890 he claimed, "I have had six children - two are dead". This claim has never been corroborated.Loving, 123 Toward the end of his life, he often told stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from the New York Herald that he had "never had a love affair".Reynolds, 490 As Whitman biographer Jerome Loving wrote, "the discussion of Whitman's sexual orientation will probably continue in spite of whatever evidence emerges." Shakespeare authorship Whitman was an adherent of the Shakespeare authorship question, refusing to believe in the historic attribution of the works to William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon. Whitman comments in his November Boughs (1888) regarding Shakespeare's historical plays: Slavery Whitman opposed the extension of slavery in the United States and supported the Wilmot Proviso.Reynolds, 117 At first he was opposed to abolitionism, believing the movement did more harm than good. In 1846, he wrote that the abolitionists had, in fact, slowed the advancement of their cause by their "ultraism and officiousness".Loving, 110 His main concern was that their methods disrupted the democratic process, as did the refusal of the Southern states to put the interests of the nation as a whole above their own. In 1856, in his unpublished The Eighteenth Presidency, addressing the men of the South, he wrote "you are either to abolish slavery or it will abolish you". Whitman also subscribed to the widespread opinion that even free African-Americans should not voteReynolds, 473 and was concerned at the increasing number of African-Americans in the legislature.Reynolds, 470 Recognition Postal issue, in 1940.]] Walt Whitman has been claimed as America's first "poet of democracy", a title meant to reflect his ability to write in a singularly American character. A British friend of Walt Whitman, Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him."Reynolds, 4 Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."Pound, Ezra. "Walt Whitman", Whitman, Roy Harvey Pearce, ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962: 8 Andrew Carnegie called him "the great poet of America so far".Kaplan, 22 Whitman considered himself a messiah-like figure in poetry.Callow, 83 Others agreed: one of his admirers, William Sloane Kennedy, speculated that "people will be celebrating the birth of Walt Whitman as they are now the birth of Christ".Loving, 475 The literary critic, Harold Bloom wrote, as the introduction for the 150th anniversary of Leaves of Grass: Whitman's vagabond lifestyle inspired a number of later poets: the "Vagabondia" writings of Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey in the 1890s, the wanderings of Vachel Lindsay 20 years later, and the Beat movement and its leaders such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as anti-war poets like Adrienne Rich and Gary Snyder.Loving, 181 Lawrence Ferlinghetti numbered himself among Whitman's "wild children", and the title of his 1961 collection Starting from San Francisco is a deliberate reference to Whitman's Starting from Paumanok. Whitman also influenced Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and was the model for the character of Dracula. Stoker said in his notes that Dracula represented the quintessential male which, to Stoker, was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman's death.Nuzum, Eric. The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula. Thomas Dunne Books, 2007: 141-147. ISBN 0-31237-111-X Two of his poems, "Imprisoned Soul" and "O Captain! My Captain", were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900."Imprisoned Soul". Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor, Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1919). Bartleby.com, Web, May 12, 2012. "O Captain! My Captain!". Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor, Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1919). Bartleby.com, Web, May 12, 2012. Whitman's poetry has been set to music by a large number of composers; indeed it has been suggested his poetry has been set to music more than any other American poet except for Emily Dickinson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.American Composers Orchestra - May 15, 1999 - Walt Whitman & Music Those who have set his poems to music have included Kurt Weill, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Paul Hindemith, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Ned Rorem, George Crumb, Roger Sessions and John Adams. Whitman is a 2009 inductee of the New Jersey Hall of Fame.New Jersey to Bon Jovi: You Give Us a Good Name Yahoo News, February 2, 2009 The final stanza of the poem "The Wound-Dresser" by Walt Whitman has been engraved across the top of the massive granite walls encircling the 188-foot north entrance escalators descending to the underground trains at the DuPont Circle stop on the Washington, D.C. transit system. The installation was formally dedicated as a tribute to caregivers for those with HIV/Aids and other devastating illnesses at a ceremony on July 14, 2007. The Eagle Street College was an informal group established in 1885 at the home of James William Wallace in Eagle Street, Bolton, to read and discuss the poetry of Whitman. The group subsequently became known as the Bolton Whitman Fellowship or Whitmanites. Its members held an annual 'Whitman Day' celebration around the poet's birthday. The short experimental film Manhatta (1921), directed by painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand, uses intertitles with extracts from Whitman's writings. Publications * Franklin Evans (1842) * Leaves Of Grass (1855) * Drum-Taps (1865) * Memoranda During the War * Specimen Days See also *American philosophy *Poetry by Walt Whitman (articles) *Selected poems by Walt Whitman *Walt Whitman Bridge, connecting Philadelphia to Gloucester City, New Jersey, is named for Walt Whitman. *Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland *Walt Whitman High School in Huntington, New York *Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, New York *List of U.S. poets References * Callow, Philip. From Noon to Starry Night: A Life of Walt Whitman. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1992. ISBN 0929587952 * Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman: A Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979. ISBN 0671225421 * Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0520226879 * Miller, James E., Jr. Walt Whitman. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc. 1962 * Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. ISBN 0679767096 * Stacy, Jason. Walt Whitman's Multitudes: Labor Reform and Persona in Whitman's Journalism and the First Leaves of Grass, 1840-1855. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-1-4331-0383-4 * What Happened to Camden's Other Walt Whitman House? Curator of Shit. January 2011 Notes External links ;Poems * "Imprisoned Soul". * "O Captain! My Captain!". *"A Christmas Greeting". * Walt Whitman in the Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse: from the "Song of the Open Road", from "Passage to India," "Chanting the Square Deific," "All is Truth," "Grand is the Seen" *Selected Poetry of Walt Whitman (1819-1892) (17 poems) at Representative Poetry Online. *Walt Whitman profile, 44 poems, essays and reading guides from the Academy of American Poets. * Walt Whitman 1819-1892 at the Poetry Foundation. * Walt Whitman at PoemHunter. *Poems by Walt Whitman An extensive collection (254 poems) of Whitman's poetry at Black Cat. ;Prose *Walt Whitman letters from the Civil War - taken from the 'Wound Dresser'. ;Books * *MS Lowell 15. Whitman, Walt, 1819-1892. Passage to India : autograph manuscript; Washington, 1870. 21s. (21p.) Houghton Library, Harvard University. *The Walt Whitman Archive includes all editions of "Leaves of Grass" in page-images and transcription, as well as manuscripts, criticism, and biography * ;About *Walt Whitman (1819-1892) at Modern American Poetry. *Walt Whitman at NNDB. *Walt Whitman: Online Resources at the Library of Congress * WHITMAN, POET AND SEER; A REVIEW OF HIS LITERARY SCHEME, WORK, AND METHOD ( New York Times, January 22, 1882). This is made available online for free in the pre-1922 NYT archives. * Walt Whitman at Find a Grave. ;Etc. *Walt Whitman household in NJ in 1880 census *Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site *Walt Whitman Camden Home Historic Site Category:1819 births Category:1892 deaths Category:19th-century philosophers Category:American essayists Category:American journalists Category:American humanists Category:American philosophers Category:American poets Category:American spiritual writers Category:American Unitarians Category:Bisexual writers Category:Brooklyn Eagle Category:LGBT writers from the United States Category:People from Camden, New Jersey Category:People from Hempstead (village), New York Category:People from Suffolk County, New York Category:People of the American Civil War Category:Religious skeptics Category:War writers Category:Western mystics Category:Writers from New York Category:19th-century poets Category:Poets Category:English-language poets Category:Mystic poets